Douglas Coupland is a good writer. He might make you a bit depressed, so I caution you. What Coupland is really good at is sharing the "delimma"- particularly that of Gen x'ers like myself. I have only read a few of his books- all are haunting in their own way. The exerpt below is from his book "Life after God". My husband and I had two different reactions to this book. He found it very hopeless. I found it hopeful. In anycase, the end of this book makes a confession, and I think that confession is profound. thoughts?
"But then I must remind myself we are living creatures--we have religious impulses--we must --and yet into what cracks do these impulses flow in a world without religion? It is something I think about every day. Sometimes I think it is the only thing I should be thinking about.
Some facts about me: I think I am a broken person. I seriously question the road my life has taken and I endlessly rehash the compromises I have made in my life. I have an unsecure and vaguely crappy job with an amoral corporation so that I don't have to worry about money. I put up with halfway relationships so as not to have to worry about loneliness. I have lost the ability to recapture the purer feelings of my younger years in exchange for a streamlined narrow-mindedness that I assumed would propel me to "the top." What a joke.
Compromise is said to be the way of the world and yet I find myself feeling sick trying to accept what it has done to me:the little yellow pills, the lost sleep. But I don't think this is anything new in the world.
This is not to say my life is bad. I know it isn't...but my life is not what I expected it might have been when I was younger. Maybe you yourself deal with this issue better than me. Maybe you have been lucky enough to never have inner voices question you about your own path--or maybe you answered the questioning and came out on the other side. I don't feel sorry for myself in any way. I am merely coming to grips with what I know the world is truly like.
Sometimes I want to go to sleep and merge with the foggy world of dreams and not return to this, our real world. Sometimes I look back on my life and am surprised at the lack of kind things I have done. Sometimes I just feel that there must be another road that can be walked--away from this became--either against my will or by default.
Now--here is my secret:
I tell it to you with the openness of heart that I doubt I shall ever achieve again, so I pray that you are in a quiet room as you hear these words. My secret is that I need God--that I am sick and can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem to be capable of giving; to help me be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyond being able to love"...Douglas Coupland
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2 comments :
wow. that's some heavy stuff. I think we all feel that to some degree if we are honest with ourselves.
A few thoughts...
Speaking from your lips that you’re a broken person and living out of that reality is drastically two different ways of living. It is easy for me to say and even realize that I am a broken person...I see loneliness in all aspects of my relationships with family, friends, and even strangers...how I long to open up and share those things in my heart that at times seem too scary to acknowledge...Have I compromised my inner voice and instead followed the much louder scream from this world saying “You need more to make you satisfied...a better job, a husband, a bigger house, a nicer car, more, more....”. I’ve wondered for a while where the younger, purer, childlike me is disappearing to in this life of mine. More importantly than those things where is the passion and excitement that use to rush through my heart with even the mention of Jesus’ name. So yes as Coupland so simply states...”My secret is that I need God - I am sick and can no longer make it alone.” Easy to say much harder to live day to day with the reality of my sickness.
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